Finally, just as Lia thought she might break, Alex pushed her to her back and hovered over her. “I love you, too. I never said that to a girl before, but there’s no girl like you, Lee.”
This new love exploded in her chest, and a new happiness, too—and then guilt burst in and swamped it all in a deluge of tears. Lia wrapped her arms around Alex’s neck and lifted her head to bury her face against his bare chest, and she sobbed harder than she yet had, maybe harder than she ever had.
He didn’t try to shush her but simply slipped his arms around her and held her against him, making his body her shelter again.
They’d made love before they’d fallen asleep—made love; she remembered thinking the phrase sounded sappy, but now it was exactly right—and they were still naked, skin to skin. Through her riotous tears of love and grief, Lia felt the contours of Alex’s strength, smelled the rich maleness of his skin, heard the potent thump of his heart.
It wasn’t simply good she needed to feel; what she needed was connection, closeness, more even than this. Without letting herself think, trying as hard as she could not to think, only to feel him, them, right here, alone together in her bed, Lia put her open mouth on his throat, ran her tongue over the strong vein of his pulse, tasted the salt of his skin and her tears.
His soft groan rumbled against her tongue, and she felt his cock move against her belly. He hadn’t been hard while she’d grieved, but now he grew solid and heavy at once. He groaned again when she shifted her leg under him so that he was settled between her thighs, and he tensed when she pushed her hand between them and took hold of him, her fingers circling his girth. She shifted again so they were aligned, then rocked her hips and took his tip in—but then Alex rocked back and pulled out.
“Easy, babe. Let me get a condom.”
But she didn’t want to break this moment, didn’t want him to turn from her even for that, didn’t want to lose the shelter and shield he’d made of himself. She held him and squirmed until he was inside her again, and this time, she rocked harder, took more of him. Made him grunt and twitch.
“Fuck, Lee, fuck. What’re we doin’ here?”
“I just … want … just us. Only us. It’s safe here. Please. Don’t let anything else in.” She didn’t know if she was making sense or if she could. God, she was still crying. All she could feel was this raw need for him not to turn away. Stay where he was. Come closer, deeper. Be hers. Feel only her.
Whether she was making sense or not, Alex seemed to understand. He studied her eyes, wiped her tears with his thumbs, came low to kiss her lightly, all while his cock throbbed inside her.
“I’ll pull out,” he said at last. His voice was nothing but raw rasp. “Okay?”
She nodded, and Alex pushed all the way in. Only him. Only her. Only them.
The difference was astonishing. That thin veil of latex, the cool slick of lube, felt now, in its absence, like an icy wall that had been between them. Alex alone was hot and solid and real, filling her completely, somehow even more than before, making her stretch and ache with each fiery slide of his skin against hers.
With a groan of surrender, Alex dropped his head to her shoulder, tucked his face against her throat. She felt each of his harsh breaths like a caress over her skin.
He liked her legs around his hips, so she looped them there, caught at her ankles, and raised her hips to match and counter each of this thrusts.
“God, Lia,” he gasped. “You feel so good, you’re holding me so tight. You’re so fucking tight and hot.”
Lia didn’t answer; she was too overwhelmed by how he filled her. Each thrust of his body into hers, each shift of their skin together, each strike of his tip against the deepest reach of her, was more than physical. He soothed her heart and excited her body in equal measure. This was exactly what she needed. He was exactly what she needed. What she’d been missing. This feeling, and this love.
“Fuck, fuck, hold on, fuck,” he mumbled under heaving breaths and stilled his hips. But Lia needed his